ST. LOUIS — For the second time in weeks, a Missouri prison has ignored a court order to release an inmate whose murder conviction was overturned. Just as in the case of Sandra Hemme, actions by the state's attorney general are keeping Christopher Dunn locked up.
St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser on Monday tossed out Dunn's conviction for a 1990 killing. Dunn, 52, has spent 33 years behind bars, and he remained Tuesday at the state prison in Licking. “The State of Missouri shall immediately discharge Christopher Dunn from its custody,” Sengheiser's ruling states.
Dunn wasn't released after his conviction was overturned because Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey appealed the judge's ruling, “and we're awaiting the outcome of that legal action,” Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said in an email Tuesday.
The decision to keep Dunn incarcerated puzzled St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore, whose office investigated his case and determined he was wrongfully convicted, prompting a May hearing before Sengheiser.
“In our view, the judge’s order was very clear, ordering his immediate release,” Gore said at a news conference Tuesday. “Based on that, we are considering what approach and what legal options we have to obtain Mr. Dunn’s relief.” He declined to specify what legal options were under consideration.
Bailey’s office didn’t respond to Tuesday messages seeking comment.
St. Louis retired judge Booker T. Shaw is assisting the Circuit Attorney's Office with Dunn's case.
"We understand that there was a request from the Attorney General for [Dunn] to not be released," Shaw said. "The judge has ordered his release — there is no basis for the Attorney General under the law to appeal."
On Tuesday, Shaw said they were working on strategies for next steps on how to handle this.
Sandra Hemme's case
Dunn's situation is similar to what happened to Sandra Hemme, 64, who spent 43 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of a woman in St. Joseph in 1980. A judge on June 14 cited evidence of “actual innocence” and overturned her conviction. She had been the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to the Midwest Innocence Project, which worked to free Hemme and Dunn.
But appeals by Bailey — all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court — kept Hemme imprisoned at the Chillicothe Correctional Center. During a court hearing Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman said if Hemme wasn’t released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court with contempt of court on the table. She was released later that day.
The judge also scolded Bailey’s office for calling the Chillicothe warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after he ordered her to be freed on her own recognizance. It wasn’t clear if the attorney general’s office similarly called prison officials at the prison where Dunn is housed.
Dunn's wife, Kira, said they would hold off really celebrating until he's out of prison.
“We are overjoyed, and at the same time, we’re also afraid to really exhale until Chris actually takes his first free steps and feels the free ground against his feet,” Kira Dunn said at the news conference. “When that happens, I think all these feelings we’ve been holding onto for so long will finally erupt.”
The history of clearing Dunn's guilty verdict
Dunn was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1990 shooting of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers. Gore filed a motion in February seeking to vacate the guilty verdict.
After weighing the case for nearly two months, Sengheiser issued a ruling that cited "a clear and convincing showing of ‘actual innocence’ that undermines the basis for Dunn’s convictions because in light of new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find Dunn guilty of these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Lawyers for Bailey's office said at the hearing that initial testimony from two boys at the scene who identified Dunn as the shooter was correct, even though they recanted as adults.
A Missouri law adopted in 2021 lets prosecutors request hearings when they see evidence of a wrongful conviction. Although Bailey’s office is not required to oppose such efforts, he also did so at a hearing for Lamar Johnson, who spent 28 years in prison for murder. Another St. Louis judge ruled in February 2023 that Johnson was wrongfully convicted, and he was freed.
Williams hearing coming up
Another hearing begins Aug. 21 for death row inmate Marcellus Williams. Bailey's office is opposing the challenge to Williams' conviction, too.
The hearing comes with urgency. Williams is scheduled to be executed Sept. 24.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in January to vacate the conviction of Williams for the fatal stabbing of Lisha Gayle in 1998. Bell’s motion said three experts determined that Williams’ DNA was not on the handle of the butcher knife used in the killing.
Williams narrowly escaped execution before. In 2017, then-Gov. Eric Greitens granted a stay and appointed a board of inquiry to examine innocence claim. The board never issued a ruling, and Gov. Mike Parson, like Greitens a Republican, dissolved it last year.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in June that Parson had the authority to dissolve the board and set the September execution date.
According to a review by the Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organization, it found the attorney general’s office has opposed calls for relief in nearly every wrongful conviction case that came before it and has been vacated since 2000.
The Midwest Innocence Project shared this lengthy statement on Christopher Dunn's case:
We are overjoyed to soon be welcoming home MIP client Christopher Dunn, who was exonerated on Monday, July 22, 2024, after spending more than 34 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Chris, now 52, was wrongly convicted in the 1990 murder of Ricco Rogers based on the word of two young boys who recanted years ago.
We remain grateful to Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore and his team for filing the Motion to Vacate Chris’ unjust conviction, setting the stage for the evidentiary hearing that occurred in May that will soon lead to Chris’ freedom. Now, Chris looks forward to spending time with his wife and family as a free man.
As laid out in Judge Sengheiser’s Order, no evidence remains to support Chris’ conviction – which has kept him wrongly behind bars, away from his loved ones, for more than half of his life. Chris’ conviction in the 1990 murder of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers was solely based on the testimony of two boys, ages 12 and 15, both of whom recanted. The identifications were unreliable to begin with – the shooting occurred in the dark of night and under poor lighting and viewing conditions. At the time of the crime, Chris was at his mother’s home watching Hunter and talking on his family’s landline phone with a friend who had recently given birth – a fact corroborated by television and medical records.
While we celebrate Chris’ exoneration, we urge the legislature to change the law, as it prolonged Chris’ nightmare. In 2020, Texas County Circuit Court Judge William Hickle found that there was significant evidence that Chris was innocent, but he was unable to free him because in Missouri, innocence alone is not enough to overturn a person’s conviction unless they were sentenced to death. Missouri is the only state in the nation to limit innocence claims by a person’s sentence. Since Chris was sentenced to life in prison plus 90 years, he remained trapped behind bars for an additional four years. That is intolerable and unjust.
Chris’ case is yet another example of how difficult it is to overturn a wrongful conviction in Missouri, even when the prosecutor supports it. At the evidentiary hearing, the Attorney General’s Office presented nothing that challenged the body of evidence showing Chris is innocent. The Attorney General’s opposition to Chris’ release and to other innocence cases must be addressed and corrected. The office wasted valuable resources and taxpayer money in its effort to keep Chris behind bars – even though two Circuit Attorneys had determined he did not commit this crime and even though Judge Hickle had already concluded that no jury would convict him today. The Attorney General’s Office is not required to intervene in these cases, where a local prosecutor seeks to overturn an innocent person’s conviction. The Attorney General’s Office is continuing to waste taxpayer money as it fights Chris’ release even though two judges have now found that no jury would convict Chris today.
In addition to Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore, we also thank Judge Booker Shaw, Rachael Moore, and Layla Husen of Thompson Coburn LLP, who joined the effort as Special Assistant Circuit Attorneys, and whose work was integral to securing Chris’ freedom.'
The Midwest Innocence Project has set up a GoFundMe for Dunn. To find that link, click here.